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Then the LORD said to Joshua, “Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Take the whole army with you, and go up and attack Ai. For I have delivered into your hands the king of Ai, his people, his city and his land.

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You shall do to Ai and its king as you did to Jericho and its king, except that you may carry off their plunder and livestock for yourselves. Set an ambush behind the city.”

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So Joshua and the whole army moved out to attack Ai. He chose thirty thousand of his best fighting men and sent them out at night

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with these orders: “Listen carefully. You are to set an ambush behind the city. Don’t go very far from it. All of you be on the alert.

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I and all those with me will advance on the city, and when the men come out against us, as they did before, we will flee from them.

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They will pursue us until we have lured them away from the city, for they will say, ‘They are running away from us as they did before.’ So when we flee from them,

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you are to rise up from ambush and take the city. The LORD your God will give it into your hand.

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When you have taken the city, set it on fire. Do what the LORD has commanded. See to it; you have my orders.”

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Then Joshua sent them off, and they went to the place of ambush and lay in wait between Bethel and Ai, to the west of Ai—but Joshua spent that night with the people.

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Early the next morning Joshua mustered his army, and he and the leaders of Israel marched before them to Ai.

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The entire force that was with him marched up and approached the city and arrived in front of it. They set up camp north of Ai, with the valley between them and the city.

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Joshua had taken about five thousand men and set them in ambush between Bethel and Ai, to the west of the city.

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So the soldiers took up their positions—with the main camp to the north of the city and the ambush to the west of it. That night Joshua went into the valley.